Two Angry Dudes v. Apple ⇥ news.cnet.com

Steven Musil reports for CNet:

Zach Ward and Thomas Buchar filed a putative class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California on Friday alleging that the tech giant violated antitrust laws by locking iPhone buyers into voice and data contracts with AT&T Mobility. The plaintiffs claim that Apple violated the Sherman Act’s prohibition on monopolization by not obtaining consumers’ contractual consent to have their iPhones locked when the tech giant entered into a five-year exclusivity agreement with the wireless carrier in 2007.

This sounds like something that AT&T would be enforcing, not Apple. The former has a (significant) incentive to keep customers locked to their network, while the latter just wants you to buy their product. Apple doesn’t care what carrier you use your iPhone on. So, why would Ward and Buchar sue them, not the carrier?

Well, it turns out that the SCOTUS ruled in AT&T v. Concepcion that people cannot file a class action suit against a wireless carrier, or at least not easily. Via The Brief.